Spotlight has long been useful in
allowing you to find various items on
your iPhone. But with the iOS 9 update,
searches now also include a much larger set of
results. You can view nearby locations, get film
times, find encyclopedia entries and so much more.
Best of all, you can tailor the results to best suit you.
To call up the Spotlight function, just drag your
finger down in the centre of the screen. Spotlight
will display a search box, into which you can enter
your search terms. The results appear underneath.
Spotlight hasn’t entirely avoided controversy. It
has emerged that it sends location and search data
to Apple’s servers. Apple says this is necessary since
it helps make results more intelligent, but bear it in
mind if you are worried about your privacy.
1: Find nearby places
Type the name of a restaurant or a nearby place
of interest and Spotlight will seek to find it,
giving you the full address and distance as well
as its telephone number.
4: Open a website
Spotlight recognises many popular websites. So
when you type a word in its search bar, it will
look for a suggested website – tapping on the
result will open it in Safari.
2: Search for books
If you enter the name of an author or the title of
a book, Spotlight will show results from Apple’s
iBooks Store. You will also be able to see its
category and customer rating.
5: Discover Wikipedia entries
Spotlight now integrates Wikipedia into its
results. When you type a term, it will look for
entries on the online encyclopedia, displaying a
small image and a brief summary.
3: Get film information
Fancy watching a film? Not only will searching
for its title display entries from iTunes but, if the
movie is on at the local cinema, then it will give
you show times too.
6: Skip to iTunes
As well as showing you Wikipedia entries and
web results, searching for a musician, album,
song, TV show or podcast will display the
relevant media from the iTunes Store.
7: Go to apps
Want a particular app? Looking for it in
Spotlight will not only find apps installed on
your phone but it will look in the App Store,
making it easy to get what you need.
8: Search for contacts
You needn’t navigate to the Contacts app every
time you want to look someone up. Simply
type the name in question into Spotlight and
results will show up immediately.
9: Safari integration
You don’t have to use Spotlight to find items.
Searching from within Safari calls upon
Spotlight so Wikipedia entries, for example, run
alongside Google search results.